Status: Read on February 11, 2014 — I own a copy {Courtesy the publisher}

My Thoughts:

I wouldn’t recommend reading Vengeance without first having read Fracture, Megan Miranda’s debut novel. Fracture introduces the primary protagonists, Delaney Maxwell and Decker Phillips, and provides vital back story that this story relies on.

Vengeance is told from Decker’s point of view (whereas Fracture was told from Delaney’s perspective. It has been a few months since Delaney was trapped beneath the frozen surface of Falcon Lake but the events of the past winter linger for them both and it seems neither the Lake, nor death, has finished with them yet.

Miranda is able to revive the tense and sinister atmosphere of Fracture in Vengeance. From the first pages, death seems to stalk Decker but you are never entirely sure where the threat is coming from. As he struggles with feelings of guilt for Delaney’s accident and still mourning Carson’s untimely death, Decker can’t shake a feeling of foreboding, of worse things still to come.

I loved the ambiguous nature of the threat. You are never quite sure who, or what, is stalking Decker and Delaney until the final scenes of the novel and that uncertainty generates the suspense that kept me turning the pages. I did think the story was diluted in places though, the vengeance angle wasn’t pushed quite hard enough to suit me, and Decker’s emotional angst/relations woe is given too much attention at times.

Though not perfect, I really enjoyed Vengeance. It works well as sequel, and I think Miranda was true to the established characterisation and story. Though some questions may still remain unanswered, I hope the author doesn’t attempt a third book but instead starts fresh, I really want to see what else she can do.